The Ramones, San Francisco City Hall Plaza, 6/8/79
I’m pretty sure that this show was broadcast on KSAN (more on which later). The sound of the recording is pretty good (which would also lend some credence to the KSAN broadcast theory), and Joey gives the station a shout-out at one point (could be because of a simulcast, or it could be due to the fact that KSAN was one of the few stations in the bay area playing The Ramones at the time). Dee Dee’s backing vocals get a little lost in the mix, but his bass is right there (most of the time), as are the all-important “1-2-3-4”s (and the occasional “eine-zwei-drei-vier” – Dee Dee spent part of his time growing up in Germany). The performance is just what you’d expect from The Ramones – tight, fast and loud. Joey has a little fun, stretching out a few syllables (“I’ve gone mental” becomes “I’ve gone may-un-til” at one point), Johnny does his Amazing Human Buzzsaw act, Marky is a metronome, and Dee Dee is, uh, Dee Dee. (For more –much more – on the phenomenon that was The Ramones, go here. Make some coffee first, though.)
I don’t know how much more I really say about the show. I’m not saying that one Ramones show is like any other Ramones show… well, yeah, I am. Sorta. I saw them something like five or six times over the years, and while it was always a good time, it was also one that didn’t usually hold much in the way of surprises. It’s not like they ever stretched out and did the jazz odyssey version of “Blitzkrieg Bop”, y’know. (For which we should all be grateful.) It’s a good record of their set at the time, but I can’t say it’s really all that different from any other live recording of theirs that I’ve heard. If you’re at all interested in the band, you should probably have at least one of their live sets in your collection. You could probably do worse than this one.
As fate would have it, I was actually in the audience for this show. Yes. So far as I know, this is the only show I’ve attended that’s been bootlegged. (I was at one of the shows filmed for Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps film, but we knew going in that that was the case.)
It was an outdoor show on a (relatively rare) beautiful sunny early summer’s afternoon. The band came out onstage clad in the usual leathers jackets, which were quickly shed. I recall Johnny in a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off; by the end of the show, his studio tan had tuned the color of a freshly-boiled lobster.
Why an outdoor show? As I recall it was sponsored by radio station KSAN, and, as I said before, I’m pretty sure they broadcast the show live. (KSAN used to do broadcast a lot of shows, many of which have since been released into the wild as bootlegs). I did a little poking around today, and saw that there was some live footage shot at a Ramones show at the SF Civic Center the nest night (it’s on the It’s Alive DVD, if you must know), so it’s possible that they were trying to drum up interest in the 6/9 show. Honestly, I’m not sure – nor am I sure that it matters. At any rate, it was a free noontime show in front of City Hall. And I was there.
Mind you, I was supposed to be at the rehearsal for my high school graduation ceremony. I think I made the right choice. I believe there were three or four of us who blew off walking-across-a-platform practice, hopped on the first BART train over to The City, and attended our very first punk rock show.
Given that all any of us knew about punk was via the laughably slated and often just wrong reportage of Rolling Stone, it’s amazing that any of us had the nerve to drag our long-haired suburban asses over there in the first place. We should get at least a point for attempting to broaden our horizons. Did we pogo? My memory says that I did, anyway. Thankfully, I wasn’t clueless enough to try to gob on anyone. Besides, we were far enough from the stage that it would have just fallen on the young couple in front of us who were feeding their baby malt liquor from the cap of the 40 they were sharing. And really, bad parenting doesn’t warrant having strangers spit on you.
It’s not like they ever stretched out and did the jazz odyssey version of “Blitzkrieg Bop”, y’know. (For which we should all be grateful.)
I guess it's pointless to ask you to be in my Ramones-cover jam band?
Posted by: Joolie | January 15, 2008 at 09:49 PM
I think I can still find two or three chords on a guitar - and I've still got the nose whistle, too.
Posted by: bmarkey | January 15, 2008 at 10:10 PM
Just bought a pair of limited edition Johnny Ramone Vans in the Haight with my son (Matt) yesterday. Is this a sign of the coming apocalypse?
Posted by: JudyG | January 19, 2008 at 12:18 PM
Maybe, although I think Johnny actually wore Vans. I just wish he was still around to collect the royalties.
Posted by: bmarkey | January 20, 2008 at 11:35 PM